"Now That's Scripture": The Significance of Religion in 12 Years a Slave

Charity R. Carney

I don't always have the most spiritual Sundays. But last weekend, I admit, I had one. I didn’t experience
this reawakening in a sanctuary but at a small mall movie theater in Lufkin, Texas. Sitting amidst an audience that numbered about a dozen, my husband and I settled
into our creaky, cushioned seats for the matinee showing of 12 Years a Slave. Based on Solomon
Northup’s 1853 co-authored publication of his personal story as a kidnapping
victim sold into slavery, the film expands on and sometimes detours from the book’s original narrative but also provides an extremely vivid and accurate portrayal of the antebellum South. It is
incredible in its incorporation of so many facets of the slave system in this
period—from the kidnapping itself, to the methods of enslavement, hiring out,
the white class structure, the ways labor was used, life in the slave quarters.
The film is a document not only of the trials of Northup and the millions of
enslaved women, men, and children who lived through the horrors of bondage, but
also serves as a document of where we stand as a culture today. It has taken decades, and the
attempts of many actors and filmmakers, to finally arrive at this picture. This film is landmark in its holistic portrayal of the system of
slavery in as an institution, culture, power structure, and moral blight. One
of the things that makes the film so successful, however, is the particular emphasis it places on religion.

There are many tools
that appear in the film. The whip and lash are seen throughout as a tool used
by slaveholders and overseers to control the slave population. The noose is
used to punish or kill runaways and those who disobey. Hands are used to pick
cotton, play instruments, and soothe the wounded. Knives are used to
harvest crops, craft corn-husk dolls, and threaten those who are smarter and stronger. The fiddle is a tool that reminds Northup of home and
humanity, but is also an object of dehumanization through forced entertainment. But perhaps one of the most powerful
tool woven into this story is religion. By the 1840s, Protestantism had wound
its way into the southern states and onto plantations, where slaveholders
adopted biblical justifications for slavery and used religious teachings to
bolster the idea of planter paternalism. With a compelling narrative and imagery, 12 Years a Slave effectively captures the
diverse religious beliefs and superstitions of slaveholders as well as the
adaptation of Christianity by enslaved African Americans.

There was no singular
form of Protestant Christianity in the slave South—not among slaveholders or
slaves, whites or blacks. The variety of interpretations of the Christian
message and Bible is threaded throughout the film. One of the initial glimpses
of paternalistic religion is with Solomon’s first master, Ford. In a scene
taken right out of classic southern history texts (Wyatt-Brown, Genovese, Burton),
Ford stands before his white family and slave “family” to preach a message on
Sunday morning, reading the Scripture "I am the God of Abraham" to the plantation household. The tranquil scene is disturbed, however, with an overlay of the
vocals of Ford’s white overseer/carpenter singing about catching and hanging a runaway.
The juxtaposition highlights the fragile nature of Ford’s hold on his slaves as
well as the role religion plays in promoting a precarious paternalism. Ford is
a “good” master, protecting Northup from the murderous overseer, but his faith
does nothing when it comes to intervening in Solomon’s condition or that of any
other slave on the plantation. In another, similar scene that demonstrates the bizarre paternalism of the plantation, Ford preaches on God’s love for His children while Eliza (his slave) weeps for the children who have been ripped from her by her "generous" master.

Unlike Ford, Northup’s
second master, Edwin Epps, demonstrates an abject cruelty towards his slaves. However, in keeping with what we know about the antebellum South, he also uses
religion to undergird his authority on the plantation. For Epps, Christianity is
both the solution as well as the threat. Scripture supports the institution of
slavery and he is eager to share passages from the Bible that justify his
holding human property. Every lash of the whip is his by heavenly right,
according to Epps’ reading of the Word--"Sin? There is no sin," he proclaims as he brutally whips Patsy, who he has singled out for both his favor and wrath. The film depicts the violent side of Christianity
in a slave society, but it also contrasts that brutality with the paranoia that
belief bred amongst many slaveholders. Epps sends

his slaves away at one point because
he believes that they are bringing about a biblical plague that is affecting
his cotton crops. He speaks of prayer and “clean living” but he is also guilty
of raping his slaves, depriving them of basic needs, and other unspeakable acts
that he justifies by dehumanizing the men and women who live on his plantation.
Epps so perfectly depicts the notion that many slaveholders were suspicious of
both their slaves and their God. These kinds of superstitions and fears lasted
in to the Civil War, when some white southerners believed God was punishing
them for the sin of slavery. The retribution of the war is portended by Bass, a Canadian hired hand who declares that the day of reckoning is upon the South. Bass also shames Epps by asking "in the eyes of God, what is the difference" between black and white (to which Epps replies a la George Fitzhugh that is like comparing a man with a baboon).

Slaves, too, held
their faith close and many turned to their Christian faith as a symbol of
community and shared suffering. While there are fewer instances of slave
religion in the film, the moments are poignant and extremely moving. After a member of their
community dies, men and women gather around his grave and join in
a chorus of “Roll, Jordan, Roll.” Religion is depicted as a comfort, an act of defiance, and as an expression of a common experience. This scene is also the
first time where we see Solomon Northup participate in the singing of a
spiritual and it seems to mark his emotional connection with the enslaved
community of which he has become a member. There are no hush arbors or ring
shouts in the film to further illustrate the many ways that slaves crafted
their own beliefs to resist their bondage, but even this one, well-placed and meaningful chorus of “Roll,
Jordan, Roll” sung in unison provides insight into the appropriation of
Christianity by enslaved African Americans. (And this spiritual offers
necessary contrast to the earlier singing of “Run, Nigger, Run” by the
merciless overseer. While Northup and the enslaved community on the plantation
do not physically run, they are mentally and spiritually fleeing the dehumanization of their
bondage.)

When you go to see 12 Years a Slave, certainly you will be
struck by the heartbreaking acts of cruelty endured by Northup and other slaves
as they are ripped from their families, stripped and sold to the highest
bidder, lashed for possessing a simple sliver of soap. And you will most likely be in awe of the determination and resilience of Northup and the many enslaved
individuals that he encounters. One of the most necessary and important aspects
of the film is its realistic portrayal of slave agency as they pushed back against the everyday problems they
encountered on the plantation (from helping fellow slaves
escape punishment to obtaining a piece of paper and
improvised ink). But woven throughout this compelling story is an omnipresent
religious narrative that speaks to the power of belief in a society in the
balance. There were as many interpretations of the Christian religion in the
South as there were slave owners and slave communities. This film accomplishes
the difficult task of conveying that diversity while also portraying religion
as one of the most valuable and dangerous tools in the slave South.

Comments

Your excellent posting provokes me to seek out and view the film. Your commentary also underscores a central point that has intrigued me: how is it that there have been (and continue to be) so many "true" (albeit often contradictory and generally convenient) interpretations of the Bible by Christians? That, in a nutshell, is the problem of Christianity among antebellum Americans--southerners and northerners, white and black included.

The "Roll, Jordan, Roll" scene does indeed seem to be a crucial moment in the film, but its meaning is ambiguous ... McQueen seems unwilling to accept the notion that Christianity can be liberatory, and so the moment seems to be more about Northrop's desperation than anything else...

Thanks for the post! I recently taught a concept formation lesson on antebellum slavery, and my students had a sound conversation on slavery's economic, social, and political impact. We only used a 2-minute clip from the trailer as part of the concept formation, but, as part of the discussion thereafter, I offered a primary source for students to consider that helped to problematize the view of the religious in the South. I will simply point you toward a broadside (originally two letters written to local newspapers) by Northern transplant and South Carolinian Presbyterian preacher George Howe, who engaged in the polygenism-monogenism debate during the first half of the nineteenth century. Interestingly, Howe did not use only his religion to comment about this debate about slavery, racial inferiority, and an attack upon his integrity. Mittag and Crawford were two lawyers in South Carolina who, like other southerners (and even some northerners), used the most recent pseudo-scientific theories in order to propose that people of African descent were naturally inferior. In addition, they embraced the polygenist side of a debate about creation. Polygenists believed that certain “races” of people were part of different creations from Europeans and European-Americans. As a monogenist, Presbyterian preacher in South Carolina, and defender of the Bible, Howe retorted that “the negro [was] as much a descendent of Adam as the white man, and the Bushman of South Africa [was] no more nearer allied by hereditary descent to the … Chimpanze[e]” than his critics, Mittag and Crawford, who accused Howe (originally from the North) of being an "abolitionist." Interestingly, Howe used “works of physiology, natural history, and fugitive essays commonly known” in addition to his religion to engage in this debate. See http://digital.tcl.sc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/bro/id/957/rec/18.